A Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin: **3/4

Unique and in many ways truly remarkable, this book frustrated me, because it felt like it should have been better. I enjoyed reading much of it, and the writing dazzled at times, but I was happy when it was over. I just wanted it to end.

The book felt like a fable, and this tone was part of my problem with it. The characters felt more like caricatures than real people, and I didn't really care what happened to them. There were a lot of times when characters were in peril, and yet I felt totally disconnected from what was happening to them. Also, Helprin has a habit in the book of coming up with these get-out-of-jail-free cards for his protagonists - they'll be in trouble and it'll just work out for them. Where's the danger, where's the thrill? There were extraordinary sections, though, notably an absurdist portion where one of the leads is trying to cross the United States on a train.

Before I started reading this book, I read some reviews of it online, and found that almost everyone thought it was a masterpiece. The one exception was from someone that hated the book, and complained about Helprin's rather conservative politics. Being a relative liberal myself, I worried that some of the things that bothered that reader might bother me as well. Although I didn't hate the book in the way that this one reader did, I did find Helprin's inclusion of some of these ideas in not-so-subtle fashion a bit annoying. It felt like a bit like pandering. Here's what I mean - Helprin creates these "wise" characters that are very smart and have seen it all, etc., and then he gives them a couple of opportunities to present opinions about wealth and social welfare, etc.. What pissed me off about it was that when his wise people then had these conservative viewpoints, the implication was that conservatism is wise. That was kind of annoying.

With all the complaining I've been doing, it would seem that **3/4 is kind of a generous review, but the fact is that Helprin created a unique story - the general idea and setup is a fresh one, and there is some truly breathtaking prose. Helprin's imagery is magical all by itself. It's hard to recommend it to fans of darker fantasy, but I think it would be worth the effort for fans of big, uplifting books. The NYTimes reviewer describes it as a "moral discourse," and it is. I can see why others enjoy it more than I do.

Quotes:
Pg 423: "Though people readily understood that a line was imaginary, and a point, too, they were true believers in seconds."
(Fall 2003)

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